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20 year-old Faraaz Hossain wasn’t thinking about becoming a hero on the evening of July 1, 2016, as he met two former high school classmates from Dhaka, Bangladesh for a brief reunion at their old hangout, Holey Artisan Bakery in the business district of Dhaka. The three friends were home for summer break from studying in America---Hossain as a graduate student at Emory University, Abinta Kabir (age 18) as an undergraduate at Emory, and Tarishi Jain (age 19), a student at Berkeley---and wanted to catch up over some bagels and coffee.

Fe del Mundo suffered significant losses early in life, and they sculpted her future. Three of her eight siblings died in infancy. And when her older sister---who’d dreamed of one day being a doctor to the poor---died at age 11 of appendicitis, young Fe decided she would be a pediatrician.

If ever there was an example of creativity finding a way, it would be William Kamkwamba. Born the second of seven children in a farming family in Malawi, he was forced to leave school at 14 when a devastating famine sucked the life out of his country’s soil and his parents could no longer afford the $80 annual school fee. But William wasn’t about to stop learning, turning to the local library for educational material without missing a beat.

How much are you willing to sacrifice for love? This isn’t a question too many of us are forced to face in the safety and comfort of the United States. But for Zoya Krakhmalnikova, a Soviet Dissident in the Soviet Union, it was 24/7.

Tegla Loroupe grew up in a small Kenyan village roughly ten miles from her school. There was no school bus, and her family had no mode of transportation. So beginning at age seven, she would run there and back, without shoes. And in the process she figured out she was pretty good at distance running.

As a young boy, Frederick Law Olmsted was curious about the Biblical figure John the Baptist, the prophet who reportedly ate locusts and wild honey. So when he found a honey-locust tree Olmsted tried to eat one of its pods. But instead of changing his interest when he found it inedible, young Frederick chose to plant a pod from the same tree and patiently nurture it until it into a sapling. Such was the spirit of the man who would go on to shape the face of public spaces and recreation in America.

Bridget “Biddy” Mason was born into slavery in Mississippi in 1818 without a last name. At 18, she was given as a wedding present to Robert Smith. By 1848 Smith and his household had become Mormon, and decided to journey to Utah with a 300 wagon caravan. Biddy and her three daughters---a 10 year-old, a 4 year-old, and an infant (all three probably fathered by Smith himself)---walked the 1,700 miles. Biddy helped to break camp, cook, herd cattle, and serve as a midwife for the caravan.